for all those passionate throes until now, left unsung, about music

Tag Archives: depression

This post might upset some of you…or it might give you hope. When I read that Chris Cornell closed his final show with Led Zeppelin’s “In My Time of Dying,” I was a bit blown away. It was too much to process. I thought it would be a long time until I could listen to the song without being overcome with emotion.

I listened to it about a week later, and really heard the lyrics. Upon a second listen, I tried to imagine, even in a state of addiction and depression, what that must have been like for him. When I hear Robert Plant’s enigmatic voice imbibe,

“Jesus, going to make up my dying bed

Meet me, Jesus, meet me

Meet me in the middle of the air

If my wings should fail me, Lord

Please meet me with another pair

Well, well, well, so I can die easy [x2]” (Google Music)

I get chills. Plant’s voice, like Cornell’s, is soulful and charged with emotion. I have to take a moment here to say that these musical gods are my incensed religious prophets that hand out my salvation regularly from the pulpit. They are the voices that redeem me. He went out on a prayer.

I am not glorifying suicide, or death, please don’t mistake my words here; but I am saying that I found peace in knowing that Chris’s final call in this world was a beautifully artistic one. My brother said, “Yes, I mourn for his passing; but he’s finally found peace. Yes, it sucks that he left behind so many loved ones, but he no longer suffers.” Well, well, well, so he can die easy. These elements came together in my time of mourning this musical sage, this wonderful counselor in a world of pain and grievances…

Like the great J. Michael Lennon often says of fall, “It is a beautiful death.” I can apply that to this scenario.

I cried. I pushed out anger listening to Badmotorfinger at the gym. I wept when I heard his sweet voice mourning the passing of his friend and roommate Andy Wood in Temple of the Dog’s “Say Hello to Heaven.”

But what we are left with is a legacy; just about 30 years of artistic brilliance that we can repeat on our turntables, our cassettes, our CDs, our guitars, among our friends, in our cars when we sing/shout along to “Rusty Cage” or “Outshined.” We can be grateful for that. We can look and admire that, though he left us, he did it as beautifully as a soul rising up and greeting the gates of Heaven.

Say hello to all of it for us, Chris

Rest in Peace.

Blessings and rock on,Rachael

See below for video of the last song, and for lyrics, and for ways to help the crushing silence of depression: